Let’s imagine a scenario where there are a couple of early men. As we know, civilizations and generations have passed and humans have become more prudent and sensible. Here’s a very bizarre logic: let’s consider a hypothetical situation where we assume that the early man was similar to a programmed robot and he learned things, reactions and sensibilities over time.

First, let’s imagine that the early man was standing. He, by some or the other way, happens to sit down. Now he realizes that sitting down brought more comfort to his legs than standing up. Let’s represent this with a horizontal line. After this let’s imagine that the early man by some way sitting down, leaned against a tree. He then realises that sitting down and leaning against a support brought him more comfort than sitting without a support. Let’s represent this like a chair without any legs.

Moving forward, he sits on a rock and leans against a tree and realizes that sitting at a height was way more comfortable than going all the way down to rest. This makes a horizontal line with two vertical lines extending downwards at both ends and a vertical line extending upwards at one end. Putting all these together, he made the first chair. He then added a little cushion and made it bigger and larger. Then came the sofas, beds and all the comforts we have today. The point here is that if the early human never sat a height above the ground, he would have thought comfort was sitting on the ground. If the early man never laid a cushion on the chair, his greatest comfort would’ve been sitting on a cushion-less chair.

 

This sparks a question: what exactly is comfort? The most simplified way to get a certain thing done, is one the easiest ways to define it. If we never had air conditioning, a fan would offer comfort to us. If we never had the fan, a hand fan would be a comfort to us.

My mother used to tell me about how she would walk all the way to the bazaar, shop for vegetables, come back and help her mom in making the daily curry. All the effort at the end seemed totally worth it after having the delicious curry that her mother made. The sheer joy they felt despite having to put the efforts of going all the way to the bazaar, coming back, and then making the curry was not something that I can relate to. They found happiness in the smallest of things. Now, we have apps like Grofers, Big Basket, etc., where everything is delivered at the doorstep.
Back then, they had to write letters, wait for days together to receive a reply. The joy that they felt after receiving a letter cannot even be compared to the feeling(next to nothing) we get in receiving a WhatsApp text.

Now, as every single thing has been simplified, our moments of pure happiness have reduced. We don’t write letters anymore. We don’t go to the vegetable market anymore. We have everything just a click away.

How many of us see the morning sunrise? I don't think many of us do. Rather, we take a snap with a digital clock filter to post it as our status because it’s the fad these days.

Modernization has given us comforts but has stolen our joy. If we never had the mobile phone, we would have been quite happy with the landline. If we never had the landline, we would have been very happy with the telegram system or the letters. We need to find happiness in the smallest of things. Not only this, Modernization has made us greedy and selfish. We’ve evolved so much, survival is no longer only for the fittest, but we still show basic instincts even when we have a choice. Let us start using technology in the right way and see to it that we  still remain as happy as we were without it.

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